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Sit In on College Courses, Without the Visit

A screenshot of an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania, in an introductory video to his online course on the Coursera Web site.Credit Ramin Rahimian for The New York Times

Michael A. Wilner received a bachelor’s degree from Claremont McKenna College and a master’s in journalism from Columbia University. He is a contributor to The Choice.

Michael Zhang took eight courses this semester at Smithtown High School East on Long Island, including three Advanced Placement courses. In years past, that would be a sign that Mr. Zhang, 18, is capable of taking on academics at the college level.

But as if to quell any doubters, Mr. Zhang has gone the extra mile. He has completed two Coursera online courses. He has enrolled in more than 20.

Mr. Zhang lists his completed Coursera coursework near the top of his résumé, next to his high school, and recognizes its cachet for him as a prospective applicant. But he says one of the most unexpected rewards of taking massive open online courses — or MOOCs — was getting a feel for what each school has to offer.
Peering into a University of Pennsylvania course online, he says, showed him the small size of a Penn class, and its benefits; doing the same with a University of Michigan course provided him with a different experience. And he did all of that from hundreds of miles away.

Andrew Ng, a co-founder of Coursera, sees opportunity for growth in the high school market for just that reason.

“It’s one of several populations we’re hoping to serve,” he says. He says he “wouldn’t pretend that a Web site could replicate” the on-campus experience, “but it does convey a lot of information.”

Statistically, Mr. Ng notes, students are much more likely to enroll in a university that they have visited. And while he acknowledges that a Coursera experience will never be the same as an in-person trip, he sees it as a chance for students to save money on the cost of travel, while learning something at the same time.

“Some of them are introductory, and a strong high school student would be able to complete them,” Mr. Ng said. “A.P. classes are meant to replicate college classes; Coursera classes actually are college classes.”

But if students do decide to take on additional classes online, they can expect to be on their own. High schools are unlikely to grant credit for courses in a medium they still consider untested.

Coursera does award certificates of completion, however.

“I wouldn’t encourage students to register for a semester-long course, and certainly they couldn’t do that for multiple institutions,” said Carol Wasden, the director of college counseling at The Hockaday School in Dallas. “But if it could be a short-term thing — a sort of online equivalent to them sitting in on a college campus class — I think that would be phenomenal.”

If students feel the burden of more coursework is too heavy — on top of an increasingly burdensome application process — they have plenty of alternatives from which to choose. Many colleges continue to update their Web sites with interactive features tailored toward the prospective student. And The Choice encourages using YouTube for discovering tips and clues on a school’s culture and values.

At Rice University in Houston, Caroline Levander, the university’s vice provost for interdisciplinary initiatives, encourages high school students to test out their online course offerings — with a gentle caveat.

“These are the same faculty that those prospective students would see if they came for a campus tour and sat in on a class,” Ms. Levander said. “Given the fact that there’s no grade or course credit, I can’t imagine that that would be a valuable component of an application.”

What are your thoughts about incorporating MOOCs in college admissions? Please join the discussion in the comments box below.

On the surface, enrolling in MOOC is not a bad idea. But paying money for the class seems like a waste, when so many courses from major universities are easily available on itunes university — for free!

It’s impossible to get a feel for what a college is like by just reading and doing the assignments over the Internet. Rather, I see MOOC as a way to learn about subjects that I’m interested in that aren’t offered as part of a high school curriculum. And @Alex Horvath: Coursera is actually a completely free site.

The whole MOOC idea seems like a very productive and useful way for students to really get the college feeling. However, taking into consideration the amount of work load that a high school senior has already with all the applications and paperwork I would find this MOOC as just more work. It should be offered as an option for the students and encouraged for all the benefits, but not required.

Don’t forget about the edX program, which includes courses from MIT, Harvard, and Berkeley and is completely free! The program is new and the course selection fairly limited, but it’s definitely worth a look.

While MOOCs may be a way to “visit” prospective colleges, they fail to convey that learning is a social activity that takes place both inside and outside the classroom. After reading today of the Harvard cheating scandal, I am reminded that studies have found that the majority of college students in the USA cheat. One of the obstacles to taking MOOCs for credit is that there is no way of knowing who is actually writing the papers and taking the exams. Ironically, this much vaunted business model for education also mimics the market culture by overlooking the ethical integrity that is so sorely needed in our culture. It seems that as long as it sells, no one cares about character education and academic integrity.

MOOCs are quite wonderful for people who actually want to learn things, and have time, or make time. I think they will only get better, for a while at least, until they stop being free.

Traditionally, in the west, university educations have been reserved for the wealthy and for the preparation of particularly promising students as ministers and teachers. Even now, less than 30% of Americans have four year degrees. Maybe our experiment with funding public higher education for the masses was an aberration.

Unless taxpayers reverse the sad trend of defunding public universities, I think MOOC type classes will soon start replacing regular classrooms. We will begin reverting to the norm of reserving physical universities for the wealthy and hard working gifted. But a university is more than just the courses, albeit they are the heart of the endeavor; universities are places to connect with other students. And while online student interactions are better than no interaction, they fall far short of being with real people.